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Category: Training Tips

I am a big fan of trying to simplify things down to the most basic level. If you do this, then this will happen. I believe most people try to overthink things. Most to the point that the answer becomes so cloudy and unclear that you never get the answer you are looking for. I am very motivated by a challenge. I do best when I can set a goal and work towards that goal. The best part for me isn’t even actually accomplishing the goal. When I accomplish the goal I have a slight feeling of apprehension. My goal is gone, therefore my motivation is gone and I don’t feel settled.

The journey is what I love. I love working towards a race and adding a mile to my distance each Saturday. Every week I go further than the last and each week I feel good about my accomplishment. Well, that’s the way it is supposed to be anyway. No matter how much we plan and want things to work out it doesn’t always go the way we want.

I was getting up this morning for my run well before the sun was out. I started my routine to get out the door and just stopped and stood there for a minute. My brain was processing that if I laid back down in bed I could sleep for another hour or even more. It seemed like a great idea. I could run tonight and sleep now, what could possibly make getting up this early a better idea. Continue reading Why Do You Do It?

Some of you may be reading this post thinking “What in the world is a PACE workout?”. Others may be thinking “I’m not trying to be super fast, I’m happy with my current pace.” Hopefully at least a few of you can back me up on saying that PACE workouts are a huge benefit to any runner.

If that is a new term to you the simple definition I would use is: Pace refers to the speed at which you are running, so a Pace workout is a workout that focuses on the speed more than distance or anything else. Pace workouts can be very structured like the Asics Pace Academy Challenge I have been doing on Thursdays or they can be very organic. The Asics Pace Academy is a six workout plan that has you go through different types of pace workouts with the goal of getting you to finish with a 5K PR at the end. I am not overly concerned with a 5K PR, but I need to increase my pace on my runs to get my half marathon PR and this has been very effective.

If you aren’t into plans or things being overly structured you can make up your own pace workout as you go. The simplest form of pace workout is probably the weirdest running term I have ever heard, fartlek. With fartleks, you simply run at your normal pace and periodically pick up the pace to 80-90% effort and run for a period of time. Then back down to your normal pace for a while and repeat as you wish. A great way to do this would be to pick one of your weekday runs and run normal for the first mile, do fartleks for the next mile or two and then normal again for a cool down mile.

If you want to be just a little more structured head out to the track at EKU and do some 400m repeats. 400m is one lap around the track. The workout would consist of doing a warm up lap or two around the track and then do a lap faster than you would like but something that you can complete (maybe 75% effort). The next 400m do slower than your normal pace (considerably slower) to give your body time to recover. Then repeat your fast lap again.

The reason you want to do some of these pace workouts is that it teaches your body new things. Your legs learn what if feels like to turnover at a new rate. Your lungs learn that they can recover from being pushed hard and do it all over again. Your mind learns that even when everything else wants to stop you can push that last little bit and feel accomplished. Doing these types of workouts regularly will change how you run. It isn’t just designed to make fast runners faster. It works just as well for beginners. The pace may be different, but the increases are still increases.

Give it a try. Go out there and pick a tree out in the distance and run to it like it’s the finish line. When you get there instead of stopping slow down and let your body recover for a bit. Then do it again. Over the last couple months as I have been doing the Asics Pace Academy Challenge I have taken my 3 miles training runs from 9:10 to 9:20 pace all the way down to the point that this morning my 3-mile run was at 8:00 per mile. That wasn’t a pace workout that I was trying to push hard that is just what my body carried me at. Pace workouts do work. If you want help coming up with a plan for your workouts let me know. We would be happy to help.

A win is always a win. It feels great, it can build confidence and it can let you know you are on the right path. Sometimes I think we can get so wrapped up in the positive vibes we get from a good win that we forget how amazing a failure can be for us. Does that statement sound crazy to you? I believe that wins are fun, and failures are fundamental. Continue reading Wins Are Fun. Failure is Fundamental.

I have written other times about how you gain strength through adversity. How you need to have stress added to your current situation to become stronger. If we look at that with a running analogy you would say something like…

Running an easy mile at a 11 minute pace everyday for a year won’t make you a better 5K runner. What will make you a better 5K runner is pushing yourself and adding distance and eventually push even farther by adding speed with that new distance. Over time the stress you are adding to your workout will make you a stronger runner. Staying at the same comfortable 11 min pace, 1 mile each day doesn’t make you a stronger runner. It can only maintain you at the level you are already.

Fear has come up as a topic in my circles several times over the last few weeks. I have been told FEAR IS A LIAR and I believe that to be true. Fear convinces us that things are worse than reality. That we are more hopeless than we truly are or that there is no reason to continue. Any one of those statements can put someone into a tailspin that will rob joy from their life. If you believe the lie that those are all facts then you have let fear rob you of all sorts of joy. Continue reading IS FEAR REALLY THE ENEMY?

Hello, Run Richmond community members! My name is Leanne Horn and I am a certified personal trainer and nutritionist at Get Fit Athletic Club here in Richmond, KY. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance! I have been given the wonderful opportunity to discuss topics related to fitness, nutrition, and overall healthy living with your online community. With no further delay let’s get started!

We can go through life and push on with determination and grit to battle whatever comes before us. If you are a strong willed person you may even be able to win some battles and feel like you are in a pretty good place. In reality though, no matter how many wins you have; if you are fighting on your own you will never win the war. We need community! We need people that will fight with us. People that will push us. People that will lift us up when we are weak. This applies to every area of our life.

So many of us look ourselves in the mirror and get frustrated. Maybe it’s frustration at how we have let our health slip. Maybe it’s frustration about the sadness we see in the mirror. There are a million different things that can cause us to have that frustration. Any single one can cause us to feel lost and helpless. When you are fighting trying to feel positive in different areas at the same time it can feel like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders. No one can carry the weight of the world on their own. We must have community.

Sometimes the truth we accept for ourselves is not what it seems. The lie is big, but it can hide itself in your truth and the lie can keep you down for a long time. We all go through life with a certain set of beliefs about the people around us. We can talk for days about the beliefs that we carry for other people and the numerous ways that we have been proven wrong. I bet everyone one of us could think of a story where we assumed something to be a true about a person and then at some point we found out we had it completely wrong.

Here is what I want to make sure you understand today…YOU ARE BELIEVING LIES ABOUT YOURSELF. We all go through life with a certain set of beliefs about ourselves. Those beliefs are what sets us up for failure. The lies that we believe keep us from doing the things that we desire to do or feel the need to do. I am not good enough…I am not smart enough…I am not skinny enough…I am not able. These are all statements that box us in and keep us in our current situation.

If we desire change in our situation we MUST believe that we can do more, be more, grow more. It is possible that in your current situation your aren’t able or smart enough or whatever, but there is absolutely nothing holding you to that set of circumstances. You just have to stop believing the lie that the person you are today is the person you are stuck being tomorrow. Every single person alive today should be looking for ways to make their future self better than their current self. We are not a finished product.

A few years ago I changed my circumstances drastically. The lie I had always told myself was that I wasn’t able to run. I tried a few times to run and would struggle and accept the defeat as proof that I wasn’t a runner. Then something clicked and I decided that I didn’t need to go from couch to 5K. Maybe I could be a walker that ran some for a while. After that I could be a runner that walked some. It really didn’t take long for me to realize that what I had believed was a lie and that I absolutely could be a runner.

I didn’t need to prove that to anyone else. I needed to prove it to myself. I was the one that was believing the lie. I was the one that was boxing myself in and keeping me stuck in that set of consequences. I am not one of those people that believes if you work hard you can be anything you want to be. We all have God given gifts that help us excel in some areas more than others. No matter how hard I worked I was never going to be a member of Boys II Men. I may have “practiced” those songs a ton in high school, but it just never worked out. Truth is that I am not a good singer, maybe not even a decent singer. The difference is that I never really felt a pull to try and become a singer. I love to sing with the radio, but I know my ability and I am OK with that. I did have a strong desire to become healthier and I felt like running was going to be part of that. But the lie stopped me for years.

If you have a desire to do something that just won’t go away there is more than likely something behind that. Don’t believe the lies that hold you back. Push yourself out of your comfort zone and work towards a goal. You may never become President of the USA, but I know you can become healthier or happier.

Seems like that was just yesterday that we rang in 2017 doesn’t it? Is it just me or as we get older do the years seem to fly by a lot quicker? Just over a week from now it will be April. That mean that 3 months of 2017 will be done. 3 months that many of us had hoped would be the beginning of a healthier life. 3 months that we hoped would be the time that we decided to go to the gym and actually stick with it or 3 months that we planned to develop healthier eating habits. How is that going? Are your resolutions, if you made any, still going strong? Continue reading Did Anyone Ever Tell You Life Changing Stuff Would Be Easy?